This Thursday morning, forces of the North Rhine-Westphalian police stormed four properties in Duisburg allegedly connected to the group "Palestine Solidarity Duisburg" on the orders of the Minister of the Interior Herbert Reul. This was preceded this morning by a ban order issued by the Ministry of the Interior against "Palestine Solidarity Duisburg" with immediate effect.

In a press release, the Ministry of the Interior and Herbert Reul justify the ban with Article 9 Paragraph 2 of the German Constitution, which states that "associations whose purposes or whose activities are contrary to criminal law or which are directed against the constitutional order or against the idea of mutual understanding between peoples" are prohibited. On this basis, it is argued that the group Palestine Solidarity Duisburg is characterized by an "anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic world view", whereby the two core points of the ban are that Palestine Solidarity Duisburg "expressly supports the Palestinian resistance in all forms - including the armed struggle of the terrorist organization Hamas against Israel" and "openly propagates the goal of the "liberation of Palestine from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River", (...) "thus de facto calling for the destruction of the state of Israel."

After the ban against the prisoner aid organization Samidoun, the raids against the women's organization Zora and the generally intensified repression against the Palestine solidarity and anti-imperialist movement, the ban of a militant grassroots initiative for Palestine represents a further highlight in the repression.  

The raids and the ban of Palestine Solidarity Duisburg show that consequent and uncompromising anti-imperialism is a big thorn in the side of German imperialism and its persecuting organs. Especially the support and propagation of the right of oppressed peoples to choose their own forms of struggle, leadership and organization, which includes the right to armed struggle, is the criterion for the secret service and police to take action against Palestine solidarity forces in particular. And from the imperialists' point of view, this is also very necessary. Because the right of the oppressed peoples to choose their own forms of struggle and to fight armed for their liberation from the imperialists and their lackeys jeopardizes the whole existence of the imperialists. The ability as imperialist countries to exercise domination and exploitation over the oppressed nations.

In the case of Palestine Solidarity Duisburg, the bourgeois state and its media do not accept that the flag of Palestinian resistance was uncompromisingly held high. This can also be observed in the constant mention of the demonstration on 9 October in Duisburg-Hochfeld, which is still being scandalized by the ruling class to this day. It is no coincidence that the ban was imposed a few hours after the day of the Nakba, the expulsion and ethnic cleansing of the people of Palestine by the Zionists 76 years ago.  Precisely because a NRW-wide demonstration against the genocide in Gaza will take place on May 25 at 3 pm.

The ban and the raids in Duisburg today are an attack on the entire Palestine solidarity and anti-imperialist movement in the Federal Republic and North Rhine-Westphalia and must be fought back by all anti-imperialists and internationalists.

The Ministry of the Interior openly states that this ban is only a first step: "We are using all legal options to dry up anti-Semitism and ideological support for terror." And in the WDR current affairs programme, Reul says that other organizations could soon be banned.